


HSWC 2013 Bonus Rounds Four to end: collected fills

by chthonianCrocuta (lovesthesoundof)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/F, F/M, Interspecies Relationship(s), Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Quadrant Confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 22:49:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesthesoundof/pseuds/chthonianCrocuta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rest of my fills for the HSWC 2013 bonus rounds. Warnings are listed in each chapter heading.</p><p><i>Flotsam and Jetsam [grimdark!Rose/Vriska (ambiguous), T, BR4]</i><br/>She's no catch.  Without the Circle, neither are you.</p><p><i>Socratic Method [Rose<>Terezi, G, BR4]</i><br/>She's asking a lot of questions.</p><p><i>Variant Chess for Trolls (and Highbloods) [Eridan<3<Rose (plus others), T, BR5]</i><br/>In Which Two Highbloods Magnanimously Deign To Play Chess With Their Inferiors, And One Highblood Deals With Setbacks Far More Gracefully Than The Other; Featuring Cross-Species Flushed And Caliginous Leanings, The Discussion Of Hatemance Past, And The Untimely Demise Of The Strawberry Creams.</p><p><i>miles of sharp blue water [Kanaya<3Vriska, T, BR6]</i><br/>You meet her at the photoshoot.</p><p><i>the hand you're dealt [Mom/Redglare (ambiguous), T, BBR]</i><br/>In your line of work, everyone needs something to hold on to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flotsam and Jetsam

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Caged in purpose, caged in night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/630270) by [Innsmouth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innsmouth/pseuds/Innsmouth), [Skarita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skarita/pseuds/Skarita). 
  * Inspired by [Donate to the Rainbow Drinker Cause](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/28054) by Team Kanaya (heart) Vriska. 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by pressforward of Team Dave<3Jade<3John<3Rose:
> 
> _grimdark!Rose/Vriska_
> 
> _Bottom of the River - Delta Rae_   
> _Heavy In Your Arms - Florence and the Machine_   
> _Power and Control - Marina and the Diamonds_
> 
> Warnings: suicidal thoughts, blood

You've been there for three days when she finally loses her temper.

"Fine!" she snaps at you, roughly sawing through the collar of knotted rope she put around your neck. "Just - just FINE! Leeeeeeeeave. Go! You want your freedom so 8adly? Take it!"

Is it freedom you want? Was it freedom you wanted when you turned against the Circle? You can't remember. All you know is that where once there was a chorus in your head, a symphony in broodfester tongues, now there is a hollow, echoing silence that makes your head feel too light, like a bubble in bladderwrack, dragging you to the surface to drown in air.

It's a long way up to the light.

"It's not as if I neeeeeeeed you."

The rope scrapes the skin of your neck as your captor pulls it away, and you roll feebly on to your side to look at her. She's huge, one-eyed, scowling; her hair is a mane of artless dreadlocks, encrusted with salt. You know she thinks she's funny, and smart besides. She's neither. About all you can say for her is that she's strong. She carried you to the water line from where you were beached, towed you behind her little rowboat all the way around the headland. It must have been hard. You're so heavy.

You feel so heavy.

"You're just a dead w8," she hisses. "A dead w8 I carried for a while 8ecause I thought you might not 8e useless. Guess I thought wrong! Should've stuck to sea glass and jet and pir8 gold! That's one mistake I won't 8e making again!" As a form of punctuation she kicks you in the fleshy part of your side, and then again where your hips meld into your inhuman lower half.

You could reach out with a single tentacle and snare her about the waist, toss her into the water to be swept away by the current; it's strong here, where the river meets the sea. You could wrap her up in them and crush her. You could cover her mouth and nose and let her drown where she stands, ankle deep in the water.

But you do none of these things, because she's probably right.

Without the Circle, you're useless.

"DID I NOT JUST TELL YOU TO GO? GO AWAAAAAAAAY!"

Your silence seems only to have provoked her further. She's pulled her diving knife from its sheath on her thigh, and for a moment you think you'll just let her cut you into pieces - perhaps you'd make good calamari, if nothing else - but when the blade flashes across your upper arm, the jolt of pain feels like waking up. You gasp and squirm away, clutching the shallow cut as your tentacles writhe and curl, and finally you find purchase on a rock under the surface and pull yourself away from the river bank, away from the girl with the knife and her hut on stilts and her driftwood jetty and her shitty little boat, and the current carries you out to sea.

Down into the dark you go, down to the teeming depths, through waters so cold they should burn your human skin (but they don't, because even that isn't human any more, gone colour-of-midnight and dotted with phosphorescent purple-white), and only once the light has died above you do you think about the look in her eyes, and recognise it.

Hurt.

Poor, stupid land creature. She thinks you ought to love her for taking you back to the water. She thinks you owe her something.

Or maybe she's just as alone as you are.

An enterprising anglerfish sculls toward you, attracted by the glow of your eyes. You flash your ventral lights, a bold warning that you're larger than it anticipated. Watching it turn tail and flee is satisfying. You didn't want to eat it anyway; the damn things are all bone.

You are hungry, though.

You haven't felt hungry in days.

The cut on your arm is still seeping gently. The salt water is making it sting, but you don't want it to close just yet. You've had an idea. You'll need to be further up than this, though, so you head for the surface, worrying the cut with your fingers to make it bleed. With any luck, something big will smell it and come looking for easy prey.

Even without the Circle, you are not easy prey.

You don't know why you drag the shark (only a small shark, but a shark nonetheless) back to the jetty once you've got it. You could very well have fought off anything that tried to come and take a bite, and it's not as though you think you owe the girl with the shitty boat. She collared you. She _cut_ you. All right, she also saved you, but you're still not sure if you wanted her to or not. Life without your masters seems dreadfully empty.

You think the boat girl reminds you of yourself, if only in that the both of you seem to have driven everyone else away.

When you surface she's sitting on the jetty, knife in hand, gutting an assortment of fish. She must've run the length of her nets while you were hunting; combing the shoreline for flotsam and jetsam is an unpredictable earner, so it pays to be able to catch something edible. There's a flounder, too, stuck on the end of a spear. She catches those in the shallows.

"Oh," she says, narrowing her one good eye at you. "It's youuuuuuuu. What do you want? I'm not giving you any more fish!"

You raise one snowy brow at her and raise a tentacle out of the water. The shark, only recently dead, dangles at the end of it. Her eye widens comically.

"Son of a 8itch..."

You think it might have been worth coming back just to see her make that face.

She guts the shark for you without being asked, takes a chunk of it for her pot without asking, feeds you spoonfuls of stew from her bowl, ties up your arm with a scrap of cloth while telling you that if you hadn't been so stupid and useless she wouldn't have had to cut you. _You're not going to be stupid and useless again, aaaaaaaare you?_ she says, and the touch of insecurity in her tone is poorly hidden.

At sunrise she puts a string of shark teeth around your neck. There's a teardrop of blue sea-glass hanging from the centre, matching the colour of her eyes.

A new collar. A new master's mark of ownership.

You wear it like a lady's pendant.


	2. Socratic Method

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by pyrokineticvampire of Team Dirk<>Roxy:
> 
> _Rose <>Terezi_
> 
> _Can't Get You Out Of My Head - Kylie Minogue_   
>  _Dance in the Dark - Lady Gaga_   
>  _Read My Mind - The Killers_
> 
> No warnings apply.

GC: WH4T DO HUM4NS DO WH3N TH3Y W4NT TO SH4R3 4 H1V3 4ND 4 PURRB34ST?   
TT: Move into a hive together and get a purrbeast, usually.  
TT: Or just talk about moving in together until the relationship inevitably deteriorates; that works just as well, if not better.   
GC: HMM  
GC: 4ND WH4T DO3S "1C3 1" M34N WH3N YOU STOR3 4 PHON3 NUMB3R UND3R 1T?   
GC: WH4T 1S 1T YOU 4R3 1C1NG 3X4CTLY?   
TT: I-C-E, not ice.   
TT: In Case of Emergency.   
TT: It's the person whoever finds you is supposed to call first if something happens to you.   
TT: I suppose that would be the moirail, for a troll.   
GC: 4ND FOR 4 HUM4N?   
TT: Next of kin, usually. Spouse, parent, eldest child...best friend, sometimes, but that's not as common.   
GC: >:?  
TT: Yes, I suppose that must seem odd after hearing so much about this human emotion called friendship. Western culture attaches far more importance to it than our laws reflect.   
GC: B3C4US3 1T 1S CONS1D3R3D NORM4L TO B4S3 4 L4ST1NG COOP3R4T1V3 R3L4T1ONSH1P W1TH SOM3ON3 UPON S3XU4L 4TTR4CT1ON  
TT: Historically speaking it was about power, connections and procreation. Families betrothed their children to one another in order to forge alliances, and the children of those unions would usually inherit at least something from both sides.   
GC: SO 1T W4SNT 4BOUT S3R3ND1P1TY  
GC: OR HUM4N LOV3  
GC: OR 3V3N 4NY SORT OF COMP4T1B1L1TY OF P3RSON4L1TY  
TT: No.   
GC: TH4T S33MS BOTH V3RY S1LLY 4ND V3RY S4D  
GC: TO FORG3 4 BOND TH4T B3N3F1TS 3V3RYON3 3XC3PT TH3 TWO P3OPL3 B31NG BOUND  
GC: TROLLS WOULD N3V3R DO TH4T  
GC: DO YOU KNOW HOW H4RD 1 L4UGH3D WH3N TH3 T3ACH3RS 4T YOUR HUM4N SCHOOL TR13D TO T34CH M3 TH4T S3LF1SHN3SS 1S 4 D1RTY WORD?   
TT: I remember thinking they were playing that documentary about hyenas again.   
TT: I was two corridors away.   
GC: H3H3H3  
TT: Exactly.   
GC: HUM4NS R41S3 TH31R YOUNG 1N P41RS DONT TH3Y  
TT: Usually, yes, though single-parent families are becoming more common.   
TT: You're asking a lot of questions this morning.   
GC: B3C4US3 YOU KNOW 4 LOT OF 4NSW3RS!   
TT: This is true.   
GC: CL4R1FY SOM3TH1NG FOR M3  
GC: WH3N TWO HUM4NS PL4Y LUSUS TO ON3 OR MOR3 HUM4N GRUBS  
GC: HOW 1MPORT4NT 1S 1T TH4T TH3Y 4R3 BOTH G3N3T1C DONORS?   
TT: Opinions vary. It's a contentious topic.   
GC: 4ND OBV1OUSLY 1 C4R3 4BOUT 3V3RY HUM4N OP1N1ON  
GC: B3C4US3 1 4M 4 SOFT TOOTHL3SS TH1NG  
GC: 4ND H4V3 TO C4R3 SO 1 4M NOT C4ST OUT OF TH3 TR1B3 TO F3ND FOR MYS3LF  
GC: >;]  
TT: Touche. A brief summary of human opinions, perhaps?   
GC: 1 C4R3 4BOUT YOUR HUM4N OP1N1ON  
GC: B3C4US3 1 L1K3 YOU P3RSON4LLY  
GC: PL34S3 T3LL M3 TH4T ON3  
GC: 4ND 4LL TH3 R3ST M4Y CR4WL OFF 4ND F1ND 4 HUM4N WHO F33LS OBL1G3D TO L1ST3N TO TH3M  
TT: Some people, women especially, will say things like "I've never thought about having children".  
TT: Truthfully, I've thought about never having children.   
TT: But if I were ever, by some twist of fate, to end up some poor child's mother, I'd like to think I'd be more concerned about whether or not whoever, if anyone, I raised them with was genuinely a responsible person, rather than just genetically responsible for them.   
TT: It would also be important for me to like that person, or at least be able to tolerate them sufficiently to share the workload effectively and discuss the child's needs.   
TT: Whether or not I was currently romantically impaired by or carnally involved with them would be moot, if not a downside.   
TT: I would rather raise a child with a best friend than a lover.   
TT: Flush is irresponsible sometimes. That's part of its charm. But it does make it less than suitable for close proximity to children.   
TT: I think humans often fail to understand that.   
GC: 4 S3NS1BL3 OP1N1ON  
GC: NOT L34ST B3C4US3 1T 4CKNOWL3DG3S TH3 SUP3R1OR1TY OF TROLLS  
GC: >;]  
TT: You're lucky I know you're teasing, or this conversation would have to turn into an excessively verbose debate instead of coming around to the point I have a suspicion you're about to make.   
GC: ONE MOR3 QU3ST1ON  
GC: 1F TH3R3 1S SOM3ON3 1N TH3 WORLD WHO YOU W4NT TO SH4R3 4 H1V3  
GC: 4 PURRB34ST  
GC: 4ND 4NY HYPOTH3T1C4L CH1LDR34R1NG DUT13S W1TH  
GC: SOM3ON3 YOU WOULD STOR3 1N YOUR PHON3 4S 1C3 ON3  
GC: 4ND YOU W4NT TO B3 SUR3 OF K33P1NG TH3M FOR3V3R  
GC: WH4T 1S TH3 QU3ST1ON YOU MUST 4SK TH3M? 

She was the weird troll girl you were pretty sure your brother was only dating ironically. Then she was the still weird troll girl who your brother was afraid he _wasn't_ dating ironically, and then the troll girl who could dance better than she told him but only in the dark because he liked to laugh at her instead of having to genuinely admire her, or admire anything. After that she was the troll girl who found it strange, and sad, that you thought she was still coming to the house to see _him_ , as if it were the only reason she'd come around.

When you moved out, she started coming to you instead.

And now she's sitting across the room from you, typing on her husktop and asking leading questions because she can't bear to frame the question that really matters in a voice you know she thinks is grating.

You can't speak either.

TT: Terezi Pyrope.   
TT: Did you just propose to me by Socratic method?   
GC: YOU KNOW TH3 4NSW3R  
GC: MY STUD3NT  
GC: >;]

She's looking at her screen, not at you. You can't tell if that wink-face is reflected in her sightless eyes.

TT: Perhaps my honoured teacher will allow me time to consider my response?   
GC: OF COURS3  
GC: YOU KNOW WH3R3 TO F1ND M3

You wish you could just let her read your mind instead.


	3. Variant Chess for Trolls (and Highbloods)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Game: Variant chess (speed chess, correspondence chess)
> 
> Focal pairing is heavily implied caliginous Eridan/Rose; also includes red Rosemary, ambiguous Scourge Sisters, Eridan<>Feferi and implied Gamzee<>Karkat.
> 
> Warnings: Vriska is a persistent butt to Eridan about his stammer. I don't know if I should warn for that or not, but just to be safe, there it is.

There are six of them in the recreation block when Eridan returns. Karkat is sitting in a corner with Gamzee, pretending he's cross about having his face painted, and Kanaya is adjusting Feferi's dress for her while Vriska and Terezi play a vicious game of speed chess. (Terezi is playing red to Vriska's blue, which makes the pieces easier to smell against the chessboard, and little colour-coded stickers make them easier to tell apart by scent.)

"Any mail?" says Eridan, as he has done for the past two weeks.

Terezi chirps a "nope!" and swipes another of Vriska's pawns. As she growls in disgust, Eridan grumbles something about glubbin' unreliable delivery drones and slumps carelessly into a beanbag.

"Water you waiting for?" Feferi asks. Kanaya swats her gently when she tries to turn and look at him; perhaps fearing to be jabbed with a pin next time, she doesn't try again. "It must be something important if you're so whelked up aboat it."

"Huh," huffs Eridan, and doesn't elaborate.

"He's been playing Loser Chess with that _Roooooooose_ human," Vriska explains with a smirk, trading a pawn for a bishop and making Terezi crow with bitter amusement.

Eridan tries to sit up with the appropriate amount of indignant decisiveness, but the beanbag thwarts him and leaves him flailing uselessly for a few moments. "Correspondence chess ain't for losers, Serket," he grouses. "Like a glubbin' landdw-weller w-would understand the troubles I go through tryin' ta finish a decent game in one night. There just ain't enough hours a play."

Kanaya lifts her head. There are a few pins between her lips; before speaking, she plucks them free. "Are you still playing the same game you began at the Twelfth Perigee's party? That was almost a sweep ago."

"I know-w." Eridan grimaces. "Comin' up on the first sw-weepiv-versary a the battle. I w-wanna hav-ve her beat before that comes around. I'll giv-ve her credit w-where it's due: for an air-breathin' humanbeast, she's good." ( _Seeereeendipityyy~_ Terezi warbles, deliberately off-key, and takes a bishop; Vriska swears loudly and slaps the table. Eridan glowers at them for a moment before pressing on.) "Reckon I got her in a corner. W-wanna see how-w she stands up ta the challenge, but you know-w how-w unbearably fuckin' shitty the mail is from that sector." He shrugs. "She's doin' her best. Better than some people I could fuckin' name."

"Shut your wuh-windhole, Caligula," Vriska sneers, not taking her eyes off the game. "You were nothing to write hive about. - Oh, fuck - "

"Checkmate!" Terezi cackles, flicking Vriska's king over with a fingertip.

"Noooooooo."

"Yes yes yes! Eat it! Eat it with a spoon!"

Vriska throws her hands up. "Bah, I'm still 3-2 up. I can win this."

"Keep talking," Terezi sing-songs. "Break?"

"Oh thank god yes. I am dyyyyyyyying for a sandwich." Vriska pushes her chair back and makes a beeline for the nutrition block. "Hey, who wants snacks?" There's a general chorus of agreement, followed by a belated _motherfuck, yeah_ from Gamzee. "What, nobody coming to help?" Shrugs all around. "Ugh, fiiiiiiiine, you lazy bunch of wigglers. But watch me eat aaaaaaaall the strawberry creams before I bring the box back!"

"Stop!"

Everyone pauses. Terezi's holding up one authoritative finger. Vriska sighs theatrically. "Either come help or don't, Pyrope. Don't keep me waiting!"

Terezi waves her off. "No, go get your snacks; I already ate the strawberry creams. This is something else." She ignores Vriska's cry of dismay and turns to Eridan - more or less. "Mister Ampora! Check inside the newspaper."

A most undignified wriggle gets Eridan out of the beanbag's clutches, and he scampers into the hall. Moments later, a yell of triumph heralds his return. He's waving a pale purple envelope over his head. Vriska, leaning on the doorframe, looks like she's glad she stayed for the show. "Holy shit. This is goooooooold. - Hey, what the hell?" Now he's pushing the red and blue pieces off their board and rearranging them. "Get your own chessboard!"

Terezi, unperturbed, sniffs at the new configuration as it forms. "Hush, I want to smell this game. Which colour is Rose?"

"She's playin' black," says Eridan, hunting for another rook. "Seein' as neither one a you has a black piece anyw-where, she's red. Blue, that's w-white, is myself."

"Ha." Vriska has ambled back over to watch. "She made you play wuh-white."

"Shut up. ...There." With the pieces in place, Rose in check, Eridan slowly straightens. He holds up the letter and stares it down, as though forcing its author to blink first; despite being over-dramatic, the act draws a crowd.

"Okay, Lalonde," he says at length, "let's see w-what you got."

He slips a finger under the black wax seal (very old-fashioned, is Rose, in some ways; it's no wonder she appeals to seadwellers) and carefully slides the letter out of its envelope.

Silence reigns for a few seconds before Karkat, trying to pretend he isn't curious, peers around Eridan's arm.

"What the fuck does _j'adoube_ mean?"

Vriska and Terezi simultaneously burst out laughing. Kanaya looks stunned for a moment, then hides a fit of giggles in her hand. Eridan turns on his heel and storms out, and Feferi looks likely to go after him before Karkat grabs her arm. "Simmer the fuck down, princess; you're his moirail, not his fucking auspistice. Would one of you assclowns kindly explain the joke for the rest of the class?"

Vriska is too helpless with laughter to respond. Terezi takes a gulp of air and chuckles it out, high and mad as a hyena, before gasping again and forcing out words. "It's what you say when you - when you touch a chesspiece you're not going - hahaha - not going to move!"

"It means "I Adjust"," Kanaya wheezes. "She's adjusting a chesspiece that only exists in conceptual - h'heehee - conceptual space."

For a moment, Karkat stands there stunned.

"So what you're saying," he says, slowly and deliberately, "is that after all - that - fucking - drama...she hasn't made a goddamn MOVE yet?"

That's all it takes to set Vriska and Terezi off again. Feferi is giggling guiltily along, and while it's not clear whether or not Gamzee gets the joke, enough people are laughing that he's laughing too. Karkat seems fit to tear his hair out. "All that suspense! No fucking resolution! Rrraugh! I think I'M black for her."

Vriska claps a hand on Kanaya's shoulder, her other hand wiping away tears of laughter. "Ah, you picked a good one there, Fussyfangs!"

"Believe me," says Kanaya, with a most unladylike grin, "I know."


	4. miles of sharp blue water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original fill by Team Kanaya<3Vriska: _Donate to the Rainbow Drinker Cause_. Title from Duran Duran's "Girls On Film".
> 
> Warnings: blood, biting

It is not your place to question Mother's decision. She is The Timeless; she has been here longer than you can imagine and she knows what is best for the Sisters. But you do wonder at her choice to use you, ten sweeps old and still growing out of the awkward phase, as a poster-girl. She gave no explanation, nor will you ask for one - you dread, you think, to hear the wrong answer, to hear perhaps that you were all she had available.

You stand in the studio, adjusting your cape for the fourth time, and wonder, and do not want to know.

They're photographing your victim first. She's an unknown, when she finally slouches in, not one of the regular donors. Must have been found for the shoot. And what a mess she is! Hair and makeup must have done very little to her before sending her in, because you can't imagine anyone you know from the team doing _this_ on purpose - her hair is like a roarbeast's mane after a lightning strike, her glasses are terrible, and beyond noting the M-like sign with its arrowhead tail you don't even want to consider what passes for clothes. She has a handsome face, though, if slightly pointed, and despite her terrible posture you have to look up a little to meet her eyes - which give you pause. There's something...odd about the left one. Too many pupils. They shift, contracting and dilating in an oscillating pattern that makes you feel lightheaded.

"So you're it?" she says, as though her peculiar eye has weighed and measured you in the space of a few moments. "Huh. I thought you'd be older."

"Rainbow drinkers have to come from somewhere," you point out.

"Riiiiiiiight." She drags out the word. It's a little irritating. "Send the yellowhorn to represent; make you all look more like trolls. Great. Whatever, I don't care." She tips back her head and shakes her hair, then binds it carelessly out of the way. She has an elegant throat, you realise. Hunger pulls at your insides. "C'mon, let's get this done."

It's more than just a _little_ irritating to be treated so dismissively. A tiny part of you wants to rip out her jugular just to make a point, but you have more self-control than to pay it any heed. Besides, a larger part of you is attracted, pitying, to the kind of precious young naivete that could believe any rainbow drinker can be safely dismissed - which is as much as to say that she doesn't truly know what you are, and you don't know whether you want to teach her or protect her from it. Fortunately your wants are not important here; you can conceal yourself, at least in part, behind the curtain of professionalism. But you make her wait a little, just the same, while you take out a compact and a tube of vivid jade lipstick.

"Oh for fuck's sake," she groans. You ignore her. She bounces on the balls of her feet, impatient as a wiggler. "You look fiiiiiiiine. C'moooooooon."

You purse your lips delicately at your reflection, then snap the compact shut, twist the lipstick away and conceal both under your cape in what you know looks like a single movement. You've done it often enough. "I know. I want to be certain of leaving my mark."

Then you step into her space with an air of entitlement you struggle to believe deep down and take a firm hold of her. She doesn't flinch. You bite true - the flesh resists for an instant before popping under your fangs - but she doesn't cry out. She doesn't even gasp or hiss.

For a few perfect moments she is reduced to a warm body against you and liquid blue steel upon your lips.

You could like her like this.

"You _can_ bite me properly, you know," she drawls then, affecting boredom; only the barely-perceptible tightness of her shoulders betrays her discomfort. "I'm not cluckbeast; I'm not gonna pass out or anything."

But you have your mandate - mark, pierce, don't drink - and once you're satisfied with the depth of the puncture wounds you withdraw. "But you _would_ pale," you explain wearily, "and you cannot be photographed in such a state."

She rolls her mismatched eyes; the left is mesmerising in its strangeness. "Like I'm gonna lose all my colour right away. And a bite mark might look awesome as hell on _me_ , but it won't make _your_ shoot and you know it. - Hey, asshole, I'm talking to the drinker here!"

"Asshole" turns out to be the photographer, a couple of shades above her. Wow. She's either very brave or completely panless. Fortunately he's not the sort to tear her head off and call for a replacement; instead he pushes her toward the set and starts directing. She makes an obscene gesture, but then she starts to cooperate - and as you watch, you realise why hair and makeup didn't try to change her. Her clothes are ill-fitting and faded, her hair is thick with snarls, her glasses look as though they've been repaired with a soldering iron, but the way she looks into the lens qualifies it all. She doesn't _care_ what the camera thinks of her. Her life is too dangerous, her grip upon it too tenuous for her to waste time acknowledging the viewer's tiny little opinion.

She is at once the strongest and the most mortal woman you have ever seen, and you, young and awkward in a borrowed cape, look like you need her.

(You don't, of course, but for the sake of the shoot you could manage not to mind.)

The photographer isn't long with her. She seems to take little joy in being deemed a natural, waving him off with an exaggerated "whatever" that has too many Rs in it. Her attention shifts back to you. "Hey, fussyfangs, c'mere and bite me harder! Trust me, my blood will look _great_ on camera."

She does have a point, but even if she didn't you'd want an excuse to bite her again. You can't help it. She's beautiful, in her lawless way, and that brief taste of her has made you so, _so_ hungry, and this time you don't make her wait. You grab her by the collar of that awful grey shirt and _pull_ , making her stumble, startled by the strength of your arm, into the waiting curve of a chair. In a heartbeat you're on her like the predator you are. The grey shirt, and the black tee underneath it, tear as easily as paper. She squawks a "hey!" of protest, which you ignore. You have what you want now: there's a rip in her clothes right from the neck to the top of the left arm. Underneath them her skin is smooth, unspoiled. As she moves her arm, muscles coil under the surface.

She might be a match for you, blackly.

But a match is not what you want.

It's a bad bite this time, deep into the flesh of her shoulder instead of seeking a vein. She makes some sound, a half-choked cry that sounds like pain tangled up with what might be joy, and her other hand finds your back under your cape and digs its nails in. It's not hard enough to hurt, just enough to hold on, to let you know she's there, strong enough to keep you. And oh, when you pull back enough to seal your lips and drink, how sharp she is, how rich, how full. You could drink an ocean of her - and you would, if the photographer weren't clearing his throat meaningfully and reminding you of the hour. A significant part of you wants to say Oh Hang The Shoot By The Neck Until Dead And May The Angel Of Double Death Show Its Soul An Uncharacteristic Degree Of Mercy, but you manage to wrestle it down to a murmur of annoyance and disengage yourself from your victim's embrace. She presses a hand to the fresh wound as she rises, grinning at you drunkenly; she has fangs of her own, you realise, delicate injectors like a spider's.

"Go get 'em, stripebeast," she murmurs. "I'll be outside after. Juuuuuuuust in case you wanna make _reeeeeeeeal_ sure of leaving your mark."

The long drawl of those vowels is not in the _least_ bit irritating. Apparently, timing is everything.

It's only when you're in front of the camera, her blood slowly clotting on your lips, that you realise you don't know her name.


	5. the hand you're dealt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by strangerhere of Team Jokerkind, here: http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/15805.html?thread=2518973#cmt2518973
> 
> Heavily inspired by Innsmouth's _Caged in purpose, caged in night_ ; written with permission. (Thanks, Captain.)
> 
> Warnings: internalised prejudice, dysphoria

Rose returns with the food just after sunset. The city is beginning to wake: trolls in hats and dark glasses are braving the dying light to get a headstart on the night, and the day shift, all hooded and concealed behind visors, are starting to trickle home for a night's sleep. Your daughter stands out among the grey and black, her head crowned with a soft mess of golden hair that you're glad she hasn't decided to dye. In every other way she seems keen to fit in; her clothes are black, marked only with her sign (invented, of course) in the same shade of purple as her eyes. She stopped wearing any other colours long ago.

You go down to the door to meet her. She hands you several paper bags without preamble. "Spicy, crunchy, salty, protein...and the rest is yours."

You take them gratefully. The delicious scents seeping out through the paper will be useless to the intended recipient, but that's what the spices and textures are for. "You've thought of everything."

"Everything except how you're going to persuade her to eat it," Rose points out dryly, "which as I recall is your job. - No, I'm not staying."

Oh. You'd been reaching for the last bag, thinking to take it inside, but Rose's grip has tightened possessively - another trollish habit she's learned, guarding her food like that. Over her shoulder you can see a few juvenile trolls lurking nearby: familiar shapes, all of them. They're friends of hers, if trolls can be understood to have friends. Some of them enjoy her company through contempt rather than pity, but if you let that worry you you'd never stop worrying. Chances are the display is more for them than for you.

You let her go with a brief embrace - _Mother_ , she protests, _kindly stop being a human parent in front of my cohort_ \- and as you head back up the stairs to the topmost hivecell in the tower, you can hear the trolls remarking upon you in their deep, growling voices.

"Iiiiiiii see what you mean about the Terran thing. Holy _crap_. If my mentor behaved like that in front of you assholes I'd smack her in the sniffer; I don't give a fuck how hardass she is."

"You would do no such thing, because you may be stupid but you are in no hurry to have your sitmeat handed to you. Which is a pity, because I can smell the scene now and it is delicious."

With the key in the lock, you think you hear Rose saying _I don't know which of you I despise more_.

The hivecell you enter isn't yours, but you know it almost as well. Bare walls, covered windows, a worn chair and a desk so neatly kept that the piles of papers look like a feature - you've seen them more often than your own bedroom this last season, with good reason. If your boss isn't at the office she's here, and the responsibility of making sure she doesn't fall apart - ostensibly in a platonic fashion - is yours. Ostensibly, though, is the key word; the two of you have a long and complex association behind you, and you've long since given up thinking of your relationship with her as "platonic".

More recently, so has she.

There's no dining table. She eats at her desk, when she eats at all. You're loath to disturb the papers, so you set everything on the nutrition block counter and hunt down her plate. The bags would be fine if it were you, but if she has to do any more fussing around with her food than reaching to pick it up you're pretty sure she won't bother eating, and that you can't afford. She's been running on empty for nights now. Something that thin can only lose so much weight before it runs out of weight to lose. So, plate it is.

(She only has the one plate. You don't care about it in practice, accustomed as you are to eating out of the bag, but that plate and all the other lonely things struck you the first time you were here, mute witnesses to her certainty of never entertaining anyone.)

As you shuffle everything on to the plate you note for the second time that Rose has set you up well. You didn't even have to remind her that Tula lost her sense of smell sweeps ago. She bought things with texture and spice and other points of interest, things that you might, with some gentle browbeating, persuade said troll to eat. She's also bought you calamari, which makes you chuckle: that's a long-running joke about Lalondes eating Elder Gods for breakfast, one that you're grateful she still sees fit to share with you. Things haven't been easy between you as she's grown older, but stupid little things like this give you _hope_ , and in your line of work you sure as hell need to hope for _something_. You see too much death and agony as it is; if you lost Rose, you don't know how you'd get up in the evening.

Speaking of getting up...time to wake the dragon.

You slide the plate on to your hand and cautiously approach the pile of scalemates in the corner. Most of them are old and worn, missing eyes, missing feet, missing heads. One or two of them have red rope nooses around their necks. The largest of them, off-white with embroidered red eyes, has a thin grey arm slung over it. The hand has claws at the end of each fingertip, dull orange, rough-edged with lack of care. There's a horn sticking up from behind the scalemate, too, a slender, slightly backswept cone that tapers delicately to its point.

You catch that horn tip between thumb and forefinger, and wiggle.

"Alternia to Redglare. Come in, Advocate; sunset's been and gone and the world ain't gonna wait."

Ordinarily if you did something like that she'd be scrambling out of the nest in an instant, a growl of irritation rattling harsh in her chest. Tonight, she barely gives a murmur.

"Holy shit. These last three nights must've kicked your skinny ass harder than I thought."

Finally she growls, but it's more like a groan, and you whip your hand away as she lifts her head. She's more than capable of goring you with those horns.

God, she looks frightful.

Trolls are supposed to be fiendish by human standards. Any fool could gather as much from a few pictures. They're haematite grey with hair that's more like thin black feathers, baleful eyes and teeth a carnivore would be proud of. They have horns. They have claws. Some of them even have gills. They're demons, by any other name. But you've spent the last four and a half years - excuse you, two sweeps and change - on this Alternian colony, so by now you're sufficiently accustomed to their brand of godawful that you can tell when something's not right. And a lot of things are not right with Tula. She's too thin, more so than usual; her cheeks look sunken, and her eyes as well. The faint metallic sheen has faded from her skin, leaving it dull as stone. On top of that, instead of the usual look of death you get for interrupting anything she's doing she's giving you a look of _tired_ instead, a look of such utter weariness that you ache to see it.

But you've got to get her up on her feet, because as dedicated as you and the rest of the team are, you all know that without her, you're lost.

And without all of you, there'll be no justice tonight.

She can't smell the food, of course, and this early she can't see much either, so you hold the plate in your lap and carefully guide her nearest hand to it. She pats around clumsily for a moment before grasping hold of a morsel of something - and then, wonder of wonders, she eats. No protest, no I-haven't-the-time...just one bite after another until eventually she seems together enough to take the plate. Her eyes are starting to focus; that takes longer for her than it should, and you eat calamari to avoid thinking about the fact that they'll probably cull her before you die.

(Dammit, you're thinking about it.)

She's eaten almost everything when she pushes the plate back into your lap and rises from the nest. A bit more of that reptilian grace is back in her now, but you can see every vertebra all down her back and that's worse than normal. You'll have to make sure she eats properly for a while. At the moment it looks like she's just burned her meagre fat stores down to nothing, which does little except make her even more unattractive by Alternian standards, but she can ill afford to lose any muscle mass.

That's what you think about, watching her walk naked into the ablution block. That, and not how you wanted to reach out and touch her.

(Dammit, now you're thinking about that too.)

As you hear the water turn on you run your fingers through your hair, and you flinch, because you know she'll just have done the exact same thing.

Your problem isn't that you love her. No, that in itself is acceptable, even though she's short and skinny and thus doesn't fit the high-moirail ideal. Your problem is that you're _human_. Your problem will _always_ be that you're human, that you feel things in a human fashion, that you can't manage clean red or pure pale or untainted ashen, but that you end up wanting and soothing and standing between in turns and all at once, a dusky rose _mess_ of soft-skinned mammalian love she'll never be able to accept, understand or return, and even if she could _you'd still be human_. You still wouldn't be a fit quadrant to declare. You have no colour fit to wear. You'll never be written beside her on documentation, nor recognised by the law you and she fight together to uphold. You're a quick fix, a stop-gap, something for her to chew on in lieu of the real thing. One more dirty little secret she'll never let out in the night.

Rose is right to be ashamed of you.

"Are you moping?"

That's her, calling out to you from the ablution block.

"You're bloody moping; I can feel it in my bones. Get in here."

It's the first thing she's said to you all evening, and it's as good as an offer to soothe you, and even now you're wondering if you have time to strip down and let her hold you under the spray and frighten all your cares and worries away. This is not your kind of love, no, but it's love, or an image of it, and in your line of work you have to hold on to -

"Roxanne, don't make me come out there."

...to whatever hope you can.

"Come _here_ , you ridiculous little soft-skin; we haven't got all evening and I intend to make you talk about this hoofbeastshit if it kills me."

So you set the plate down by the nest, and you go.


End file.
